BOLLYWOOD SURKHIYAN

5 Insider Tips From a Google AdWords Strategist

Today I had a missed call from a London phone number, and I thought, “who the heck do I know that would be calling me from London?” A few hours later my phone was ringing again, and it was the same London phone number, so I picked it up. It was Google.

More specifically, it was a call centre employee dubbed a “Google Account Strategist”, and they were calling me about a new small business AdWords account I had just started managing. I receive so many calls from overseas people about Google and SEO, and how I “can be number 1 in Google for a fee” blah blah blah, so my first instinct was to say “no thank you” and hang up, but I knew the client would be told if I didn’t at least hear what the account strategist had to say.

Fast forward 30 minutes to when the call finished. I was actually impressed with the level of knowledge and step-by-step detail the account strategist provided for features that don’t cost extra to implement. Google AdWords has so many options that setting up a new account can easily take two days, so it was nice to get a refresher on a few strategies I hadn’t got to yet.

I thought it would be helpful to share these tips with you as well, whether it’s a refresher or you’re still exploring everything that AdWords can offer. I also have a step-by-step guide for starting AdWords, Get Started with Google AdWords, which you should take a look at first if you’re new to AdWords. The foundation needs to be right before exploring the advanced features.

Here are the 5 Google AdWords strategies that are definitely worth experimenting with.

Ad Extensions

Firstly, I’m a big fan of ad extensions because they allow you to include additional information beyond the character limit of the ad copy, giving way more prominence to your ad.

My go-to ad extensions are always:

Location Extension: Showing your physical address for hyper-local marketing.
Call-Out Extension: A good spot for value proposition text such as “friendly team”.
Sitelinks Extension: As you’re only allowed one URL per ad, this type of extension enables you to add other links to cross-sell within the same ad. For example, if you’re advertising a painting category, then within the extensions you can also have links to ladders, paint brushes, and even paint services. Highlighting more of your offering positions you as an attractive one-stop option.
Call Extension: Make it very easy for people to click while on their mobile and instantly calls your business.

Ad extensions can be applied:

At the Account level: This option will add the extensions to every ad within the whole account.
For Specific Campaigns: This option allows you to tailor the extensions based on the Campaign theme.
For Specific AdGroups: This option allows you get even more specific with the extensions based on the AdGroup theme.

The more relevant your ad is to what a searcher is looking for, the better it will perform. Using the paint example again, it’s not a good use of space to also advertise that you sell plants within the same ad. Sure, it’ll be interesting to some people, but you should have a separate AdGroup for plants with ads written specifically for people searching for plants.

The next two ad extensions have evolved, and I will definitely be using them wherever possible.

1. Structured Snippets

Structured snippets is an ad extension that allows you to insert another line of words, which adds more depth to your ad message.

a) Click on the Ad extensions tab

b) Click on the drop-down and select Structured snippets

c) Click the red button ‘+extension’

d) Click on New structured snippet

You’re restricted to fixed categories, but most will allow up to 10 items. The categories to choose from are: amenities, brands, courses, degree programs, destinations, featured hotels, insurance coverage, models, neighbourhoods, service catalogue, shows, styles and types.

Adding the additional information can make your ad more enticing and is very useful if your offering is broad.

2. Price Extensions

The price extension is a must-have if you have a sale or promotion. I don’t think I need to explain why, have a look at the screenshot to see how prominent the ad is. It will certainly stand out!

a) Click on the Ad extensions tab

b) Click on the drop-down and select price extension

c) Click the red button ‘+extension’

d) Click on New price extension

I like that it allows you to choose whether to be specific with prices or keep it general.

a) Choose the type; brands, events, locations, neighbourhoods, product categories, product tiers, service categories, service tiers or services

b) Currency

c) Price qualifier; none, from or up to

d) Header

e) Description

f) Price

g) Units; none, per hour, per day, per week, per month or year

h) Final URL

3. Phone Call Conversion Tracking

If you are using the call extension, there are additional steps you need to take to enable calls to be tracked within the account. It’s a must-have measurement to judge the performance of your ads. Especially if you don’t have Google Analytics linked (but you really should link to Analytics – so that you can monitor the behaviour once people are on the website. If people click and then leave, you’re wasting your money on those keywords without knowing it).

a) Click on Tools in the top menu, click on Conversions and then Phone calls

b) Select the 1st option ‘Calls from ads using call extensions or call-only ads’, fill in the options (change call length to 5 seconds and count to ‘every’), and save

c) Then go to call extensions and click the red button’+ extension’

d) Select Campaigns or AdGroups, add your phone number and click the edit pencil on the right

e) Turn call reporting ON, expand the advanced option – tick the report phone call conversion and select the phone conversion from the list we set up earlier and save.

4. Shared Library: Bid Strategies

Shared bid strategies are located in the AdWords shared library; you’ll find this in the left-hand menu. Here you’ll find the option to choose from six different flexible bid strategies: Enhanced CPC, Target Search Page Location, Target CPA, Target Outranking Share and Maximize Clicks.

However, we’re going to focus on the Target Search Page Location.

It’s a reality that the top 1 or 2 ads will get the most clicks, and if that’s your goal, then this is an ideal strategy to test out. This option will automatically adjust the bids required to get your ads to the top of the page, or the first page of search results.

Here’s a look at the options you can set: Target search page location

a) Select ‘Top of first page’ and ‘automatically’

b) I recommended that you set a bid limit. Otherwise you can easily blow out your budget. This may defeat the purpose of the strategy, but if you aren’t willing to spend $20 per click to get to the top, you need to fill this in.

5. Use 3 Variations of Ad Copy

And finally, it’s always best practice to write 2 to 3 variations of ad copy and based on the result, the ad that generates the most activity will automatically be shown more. The account strategist recommended this particular structure for each AdGroup, as the combination has apparently gained good results from tests Google have done:

Ad Copy 1: Use your business name in the headline
Ad Copy 2: Use keyword insert in the headline to match the keywords that the user has typed into Google search. E.g. AdWords automatically replaces the code with the keyword that triggered your ad: {KeyWord:House Paint}.
Ad Copy 3: A strong call to action in the headline, e.g. Claim Your Free Paint Sample

So, there you have it, 5 handy tips straight from a Google Account Strategist that you can implement in your Google AdWords account straight away.

Affordable & Effective Marketing Tips to Promote Your Business Online

There are many ways that you can market your business without having to spend a lot of money and if you know what they are, then you can get started. You can do this simply by creating some stunning content and having it posted on your blog or even by writing for an industry-related magazine. These are just a few of the many options that you can pick and choose from, so make sure that you are considering what options are going to be ideal for you.

Affordable Marketing Tips

Make sure that you are looking at the budget that you have for marketing and that you are thinking of how you can get the most for your money. Here are some great tips that can help you to save money or get marketing done at affordable prices, including:

• Creating some of the best and most unique content that is found on the internet and posting it on your blog

• Create your own My Business Google account to ensure the visibility on various sites like Google Maps

• Build an email list of interested customers and make sure that you are letting them now when new services or added or when you have a sale

• Write an informative article for one of your industry related magazines

• Attend some of the functions for local networking

• Sponsor or even co-sponsor a giveaway or contest

• Build an affiliate program for your loyal customers

• Write guest posts for some of the popular niche sites

• Comment on various blog posts

• Create a group and profile page on Facebook for your business

• Offer some free introductory products on your page

• Create some stunning infographics that you can use

• Create business cards that will catch the eye

• Host some classes locally

• Post free information on your social media pages

• Interact with customers on social media through comments, messages and more

• Buy advertisements on Facebook and other social media platforms

• Consider PPC as an option

• Offer discounts to people who subscribe to your mailing list

Think about these various ways that you can save money when it comes to advertising since most of them would be affordable and can fit into any budget that you might have. Find the ones that work for you and that would cover the needs that you might have, so start looking now.

There are plenty of ways that you can get effective and affordable marketing without blowing up your current budget. Think about creating some great content and posting it on your site along with writing guest posts for other industry sites. Also, you should make sure that your business is claimed on all of the Google Business tools and that you are updating the information as it changes, if it does. You also want to make sure that you are finding the right marketing technique that would work for you, including giveaways and much more.

What’s in a Domain Name?

The term domain name may be unfamiliar to you, but all that it really refers to is the name or title used for your business on the internet. If you are a business owner, then you need a website. You should spend time thinking about this as it could be one of the most important things you do to promote your products or services. The right domain name is probably the most important thing in your branding/marketing plans. There’s no doubting the fact that people make judgments when they see or hear a particular name. Your job, when choosing/coming up with a domain name is to find one that specifically defines what your business/website is about in a specific way. If you want the answer to what’s in a domain name, the most important part of it is your brand. You may need professional help with this aspect of things

Research Your Market

The worst thing you can do is to come up with a domain name off the top of your head, or that you just like the sound of. If you want visitors to your website, the first thing you need to do is to research your market. Take a look at other businesses in the same line to see what they’ve chosen, then try to go one better.

Once you’ve researched a few names, go into Google keywords tool to find out the volume of searches for each of these names. Consider the median search term for a business like yours, then play around with them to see whether you can come up with something unique, but just as attractive. When you see the words or terms that people are using to find a business like yours, you are on your way to getting the right domain name.

Choose the Right Domain Name Provider

There are many domain name providers around, don’t choose the first one that you come across. Make sure that you choose a company where your domain name doesn’t need to be renewed every year or two. People have lost the right to the name if they don’t renew or re-register their domain name in the specified timeframe. Your domain name is essential to your brand and finding the right domain name provider is crucial to your online success. Make sure that you do your research and choose a name that describes your brand.

How My Vet Helped Me Find Hot New Products to Sell on eBay

Today my vet mentioned the ‘F’ word ….. he’s foreign, Polish I think, and I’m not sure if the ‘F’ word is acceptable in his country ….. but it certainly is not acceptable in mine!

“Fat”, he said, “Your dog is too FAT. He needs to lose weight or he’ll DIE before his time.”

‘D’ along with the ‘F’ word made me sit up and take notice. “Lose the weight”, he said, “and he’ll be with you much longer.”

Enough said, immediately I got home I searched eBay, and ClickBank, for a report about helping your dog lose weight fast. I searched for ‘dog weight’ and ‘dog fat’ and I found ….. tons of huge bags of low calorie dog food and biscuits which I never give my dogs anyway, and absolutely ZILCH in the way of information to help me downsize my dog.

So I ended up searching Google for information about helping my mutt look more macho when the idea suddenly struck me – why don’t I turn all of this information from Google into a low cost information product to sell on eBay and ClickBank? Why not also promote my new infoproduct through eBay Classified Ads and grow a mailing list for products I can recommend later?

Oops, I forgot to say, I wasn’t the only person in the surgery to get a rollicking today, there were three of us with overweight mutts lined up for the exact same treatment …. which set me thinking ….. if three out of three people sitting in the surgery today need help of the kind proposed for my new product, just how many other people might also need it?

So I reckon I’ve found a fabulous new market, one that will help my dog, help other people’s dogs, and could possibly make a fortune for me!

The idea is to write a report and offer it for just a few dollars, and in the back of the report I’ll include affiliate links for other items to interest dog lovers, such as medicines, food and biscuits, holiday kennels, and so on. Think about it, if I sell just one eBook every day at $2 pure profit, that’s $600 plus per year, and that’s before we even start thinking about affiliate commissions.

What does this have to do with you? Well I just wanted to prove how easy it is to find a niche market with countless eager buyers and not one person providing for their needs, no one that I could find anyway!

The moral is to keep your eyes and ears open no matter where you are because ideas are all around you and just one idea is all it really takes to start a profitable business.

Apart from waiting for my vet to throw ideas at me, these are other methods I often use to locate some new niche market for my eBay business and other online ventures:

* Visit forums related to your chosen marketplace, such as dogs, but also including child care, marital problems, expatriate living, debt, and millions more. Find forums by searching Google for “xxx + forum” where xxx represents your chosen market or subject. So for forums frequented by chess players you might search for “chess + forum”.

Google usually returns the biggest and most active forums first on their listings, so note down the address of the first ten or so. Visit them in Google order and study postings by members and definitely, I don’t say maybe, I said definitely, you will encounter problems shared by many members. Study these problems and then look for free or low cost information products to help solve those problems. Look on eBay, look on ClickBank, other places too but those are enough to start with. If you find few or no suitable information products then you should consider writing your own or cobble one together from PLR and public domain text. If along with no suitable information products, you find physical products aplenty, these are the kind of products to promote as an affiliate inside your low-cost, no-cost reports.

* Study niche market publications on newsagents’ shelves, such as baby magazines and investment newspapers. Study various same subject publications that normally sit side by side on the newsagents’ shelves making studying them very easy indeed. Look at the headlines, notice if two or more publications feature one problem or theme which might be construed as applying to the entire niche marketplace. This indicates a problem or theme that you can profit from. So if, for example, you see two or more collectibles magazines focussing on one specific collectible, this could be the perfect product for you to sell on eBay. If two or more publications aimed at guitar players feature a new and revolutionary kind of guitar accessory, then this could be another perfect product for you.

* Watch the telly, listen to the radio, keep your eyes and ears open for problems and trends you might capitalise upon. Think about obesity and the belief that soon the majority of children will be morbidly FAT (that word again), then look for products to help parents reverse the trend.

Think about pension funds going belly up in line with firms going out of business and leaving lifelong employees facing a miserable old age. Now go to eBay, go to ClickBank, is there anything suitable for them to read to help grow their pension pot without outside help? No! Then that’s a perfect infoproduct for you to create, one with mountains of affiliate opportunities to promote on the back end. You could write a short report about alternative investments, for instance, or running a small business on eBay, suggesting both as a means of growing retirement income free from banks and employers. Just be sure to pack the product with links to Amazon books about making money on eBay and growing an affiliate investment portfolio and …..

….. oh I could go on for hours dreaming up new products to sell which would leave me with no time at all to actually promote those products. So I’ll leave you now to do your own research and to find products no one else is providing, all it takes is a few minutes but the rewards can last a lifetime!

Cease and Desist – What To Do (Besides Panic) Upon Receipt of This Letter

When clients need to create marketing tools for their businesses which include trademarks, advertising, brochures, direct mailers, websites, signage and other highly visible digital and printed communications, they are often oblivious and sometimes dismissive about the stringent laws protecting copyrights and trademarks against infringement. However, if a rights or mark violation is detected by the owner of record, he may commission his lawyer to draft a “cease and desist” letter which usually shocks the recipient into an immediate state of panic with only days in which to respond.

Such letters serve to notify the alleged offender that a lawsuit may follow should the offending activity continue and that “damages” may be determined by how much revenue/profit was generated as a result of such activity.

Since I am in the thick of it as the creator of the marketing items mentioned above, my clients share such notices with me in the hopes that I can somehow help them out of trouble. Equally shocked by such news since I never intentionally engage in any kind of infringement activity, I first inform my clients that I am not an attorney and therefore cannot legitimately advise them of their legal rights or ramifications of such a letter. And, since work with my clients is very much a team effort, involving instructions, guidance and ultimately approval from my clients before proceeding with printing or publishing any final marketing efforts for them, my surprise at the receipt of such a letter cannot be masked. I do share with them previous experiences and my suggestions about how best to proceed.

On a recent such occasion, my client decided after much anguish and disbelief, that the best course of action would be to consult a trademark attorney for expert representation. While I have often written letters for clients to successfully support their legal stance, I could not argue the virtues of this decision because of one undeniably important fact. Although my client and I are both individual business owners, the client behind the cease and desist letter was a multinational corporate behemoth with very deep pockets using a nationally based law firm with offices in Manhattan.

This did not surprise me since the work I do for my clients has powerful marketing strength, with highly attractive graphics and equally compelling messages, vaulting them to the top of Google rankings which result in stellar sales and incredible notoriety. It is no wonder that such a large corporation would fear the threat of competition from my client, both of whom are selling to the same market. What was puzzling about this situation was that my client’s marketing is extremely supportive of the corporation in question since my client’s items are meant to enhance this corporation’s products. Without the corporate products, there would be no market for my client to serve.

After more than a decade of working together, my client would be the first to admit that my marketing efforts are largely responsible for his rise to fame which ironically includes sales to divisional units of this same corporation. Many of these corporate units have recognized the value of my client’s products to adorn their brand as a way to improve their own sales, not deter them. But it seems the members of the corporate elite at the helm of this company’s Asian headquarters worry that my client is attempting to take business away from them, clearly a misunderstanding on their part.

What was the nature of the cease and desist letter? The corporate lawyer itemized a number of alleged infringements:

1. Use of a typestyle to identify their products which was not their logo but was close enough to possibly cause market confusion.

2. Failure to obviously differentiate our products from theirs, the difference being aftermarket vs. original equipment manufacturing, respectively.

3. A number of stipulations about size of text used on the name of this corporation (too large!), size of text used in our disclaimer information (too small!) and use of their corporate name within photos of their own products on which our products can be used. (Do we detect envy here?)

4. Use of the corporate name on our products, an erroneous assumption made by the corporation based on the use of their name on their own products within some of our photos. Note that the corporate lawyer clarified that we were not infringing on any rights by using their name or showing their products to sell our goods which are designed and manufactured to complement and accessorize their products. This is quite legal. What they were protesting were our alleged “unfair business practices” which possibly were taking business away from them.

At my client’s request, I provided his lawyer with extensive research I had done in support of my client showing similar instances of the alleged offending citations; examples of disclaimer text size used on countless other websites, including the corporation’s own website (which is much smaller than that used on my client’s website!); and proof that none of our products display the corporation’s logo or any facsimile of it whatsoever. These examples were forwarded to the corporate lawyer with a sentence or two from my client’s attorney.

In the meantime, allowing the lawyers to speak to each other in their own language on their own schedule had bought us extra time in which to implement any necessary changes. Since my client had given me free rein to address all complaints as I determined necessary, I decided that compliance would be the best route to curtailing any further action which could involve more than a decade’s worth of my client’s annual revenues. Despite knowledge that my client felt 100% justified in the use of the corporate name in the tasteful manner in which we had done to date and was peeved by having to make so many changes for no apparent gain, I decided that a total marketing re-design could satisfy the corporation while elevating my client’s brand to a new level of excellence. In essence, why not capitalize on a seemingly grave situation to transform it into a positive opportunity for growth and profit?

Luckily, my client did not have a problem with emphasizing that his products are truly aftermarket in nature (meaning not OEM or original equipment manufacturing) because OEM products are frequently perceived as overly expensive and sometimes of inferior quality in comparison and my client’s aftermarket products are often sought as a better alternative to OEM at a better price! Furthermore, replacing the corporate name with my client’s company name was a giant step forward to stronger branding for my client’s business, something he had been timid about doing for the majority of his years in business for fear of overshadowing the corporate name on the products for which his items are made.

So, I began the arduous task of redesigning every page of his website, his printed materials and signage; rewriting text to comply with the corporate requests (verbatim!); removing their name from every photo of their products showing use of our products; and lengthening our already very comprehensive disclaimers to include every detail of their verbiage including statements that we “do not sell original equipment manufacturing” and that “we are in no way affiliated with, authorized by or connected with” the corporation in question. I made sure that these changes were made on every one of our more than 90 web pages and countless other marketing items!

Once this work was complete, our lawyer informed us that our new presentations had passed muster with the corporate lawyer and his clients, satisfying all alleged transgressions and terminating any further action at this time.

Since we had never previously mentioned the term OEM or original equipment manufacturing anywhere within our material, I informed my client that the use of such terms repeatedly on every page of our website would increase the likelihood that Google searches would now list our pages in response to those search terms, in addition to our excellent ranking for aftermarket searches, opening up a new market for awareness and possible sales. It seems that the corporation’s complaints were in fact helping my client while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot, so to speak!

With this knowledge, my client celebrated not only the relief of legal rectitude but triumph in defeat! Granted, he may have paid his trademark lawyer handsomely for delivering my messages to the corporate lawyer, and paid me for all my work to correct his supposed infractions, in the end he benefited greatly with better branding, legal fortitude and the prospects of bigger profits to come, not just from his worldwide consumer market but also from the now ingratiated corporation who probably feel the victory was theirs alone. Who knew cease and desist could translate as win-win?

Personal Branding – So What Is The Big Deal?

The Top 100 brands have a total value of $2.04 trillion. Does that sound like a big deal to you? Yeah it sounds that way to me too. Let’s take a look at the top 4 brands in the world as ranked by total value.

1. Google
2. IBM
3. Apple
4. Microsoft

I don’t know anyone in the developed world that has not heard of every one of these Brands. Name recognition is just one aspect of Branding, but it is a very powerful one. Take just a few seconds and think about each of these Brands separately. I am willing to bet that you can tell me what their logo looks like, what the company colors are, what many of their products are, what the public perception of them is, etc.

Let me give you an example of successful branding:

Jim sneezes so he reaches for a Kleenex. The sneeze causes his ears to pop and he grabs a Q-tip to clean his ear. Wondering what makes your ears pop when you sneeze, Jim decides to grab his Mac and Google it.

That paragraph is what you call the ultimate in Branding. Let’s break it down shall we? What Jim really used was a tissue, but the branding has been so successful for Kleenex that the words are synonymous. The same is true with the cotton swab. Another marker in ultimate success when it comes to Branding is when your company name becomes a word of its own. Google was turned into a verb to describe the act of looking up information online.

Google has built such a powerful brand that they surpassed all other search engines, to become synonymous with internet search. For those of you that are not as big of a tech nerd as I am let me give you a little history. The first search engine ever is one that most people have never heard of. It was called Archie and was created in 1990 at a University in Montreal and was short for “archives”. This search engine was on a page that presented itself as “Archie Query Form.” Archie was actually created before the World Wide Web existed and lived on Gopher. Six years and several search engines later and we have Google. Did you know that the original name for Google was BackRub due to the backlink indexing it was based on? Did you know that the name Google is actually the miss-spelled word googol? Did you know that the simplistic design of the Google website is due to the fact that the creators were not technically versed in HTML code? What is my point of all of this history of Google and what does that have to do with you?

It is to prove that you do not have to be the first at something to be successful. You don’t have to have an original idea. You don’t have to be technically proficient in software, computers or technology. You don’t even have to be a good speller to be successful. You do however have to be good at Branding and selling yourself.

So how do you become good at Branding and selling yourself? That will be the subject of my next article; at least I will start in on it. Explaining how to successfully Brand yourself will take several articles and I hope to get them out soon.

How to Buy a Good Domain Name

If you looking to buy a good domain name for you website you will want to take a few things into consideration.

1. Is your website domain going to be for SEO or Branding Purposes?

2. What are the best domain extension(s) for your website URL?

3. Finding a good domain register with excellent support.

4. What is the cost of the domain name?

5. Are there any bonuses with the domain purchase?

1. Is your website domain going to be for SEO or Branding Purposes?

Now that you are ready to start you website you will need a great domain name that you will use to promote and brand your website. If you are building your website for the search engines primarily you will want to put your primary keyword phrase in the domain so Google and other search engines will more easily be able to identify and index your website for your keyword. If your primary keyword phrase has more than one word in it, separate each word in the URL with a dash. (Ex. www.keyword-phrase.com)

When branding your website you will want to choose a URL that is easily remembered by people and isn’t very long so it’s simple to type into the browser and spell correctly or tell their friends and others interested in your website with ease.

2. What are the best domain extension(s) to choose for your website URL?

When searching for your new domain you want to take into consideration the extension you wish to choose for your website URL. The best extensions are .com, .net, .org, and if they are not available look for your country level domain, like .ca for Canada, .us for USA, .it for Italy, .in for India etc.. If you are building a video website try .tv or if you are creating a mobile website specifically for cell phones and smart phones you will want to get a .mobi domain extension.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s a smart idea to grab all the domain extensions available so your competition doesn’t grab them instead and try to sell them back to your for much higher cost or setup a site on them that can hurt your brand name.

3. Finding a good domain register with excellent support!

When looking for a domain register to purchase your domain from, choose one that provides FAQ’s, a help centre and 24/7 email and phone support so you can get your questions or concerns answered at anytime night or day.

4. What is the cost of the domain name?

Depending on the domain register and URL extension you choose will determine the cost of the domain. Typically a .com domain can average about $9.99 and up but some domain registration sites give special prices for .com with a non-domain purchase which is good to look for too. A .mobi can be about $14.99, .asia is about $19.99, but the cheapest domains to buy are normally .info and run about $1.99 for the first year, which is good, but .info are not the best extensions to choose from especially if you are want to brand your website.

5. Are there any bonuses with the domain purchase?

Make sure to look for any bonuses you will receive with your purchase of your domain, some domain registration site are quite generous and will give a lot of valuable bonuses such as a free Photo Album, Quick Blogcast, Hosting with Site Builder, Personalized Email, Forwarding / Masking, 100-Pack Email Forwarding, Starter Web Page, “For Sale” Parked Page, Parked Page w/ Domain, Total DNS Control, Change of Registration, Status Alerts, Domain Name Locking. With all the mentioned bonuses it’s over $141 USD with a purchase of a domain which is great! So keep an eye out for those.

So to recap, remember to choose a good branded or SEO domain, with the type of URL extension that suits your website and find a registration site with great 24/7 support, a competitive price and valuable bonuses with your purchase. Good luck with buying your perfect domain name and having great success with your new website venture.

Importance of Free Domain Names

Internet marketing is approximately 25 years old. Since 1989, different marketing techniques have been used to maximize the business revenue through the internet. In this article, I am going to discuss some link-building techniques for your website. The Google algorithm was based on the calculation of links pointed to a website. Considering this, I have listed the 5 most important components of any digital business:

1. A good domain name

2. Exceptional copywriting

3. Attractive designs

4. SEO oriented sitemap

5. Quality outbound & inbound links

There are other elements as well, but, I have tried to keep the list short. Quality links are an important tool to enhance your online presence. Well, there are many link-building tools available, a free domain name is the oldest & most reliable way to attract quality links. Here are some reasons:

Free domain names have thousands of links pointing to the root domain.

You can easily create a free domain with minimum designing effort.

Free domain names have a high page rank and Alexa rank i.e. WordPress.com has an Alexa rank of 18.

It is an old marketing technique to use free domain names for link-building purposes. Lets suppose you have a website named as “http://www.lifestyle.com” and you want to create quality backlinks for this website. You can easily create a free WordPress blog for this website. It should be “lifestyle.WordPress.com. This website will give you a quick access to thousands of backlinks. You can also get a few hundred visitors from this free website. Also, this website is very niche specific and provides a very relevant backlink to your site.

So, you can create 50 free domain names to create 50 relevant backlinks to your website. Internet marketers have used this idea and still now, It is a very good trend to do so. You will need to have an exceptional fast copy writing service to write all the content. I know it is hard to create 50 websites but, it is a good idea if you are creating a celebrity brand. Building blogs on the root domain is also a good idea to get good links. Some website allow their visitors to create blogs on their website without paying a penny. It helps in attracting fresh content, generating sales, and attaining good page rank.

Please do not try the same platform to create all of those 50 websites. You can create different websites on different blogging platforms. Here are few websites that I recommend:

Blogger

WordPress

Weebly

Tumblr

Livejournal

Thanks.

How Do I Market My Small Business – Article Marketing Is What I Advise All My Clients To Do

I work in the business of helping small businesses get noticed on the internet. Daily I am asked questions by small business owners about how I do so well in getting my clients ranked highly by the search engines. I have lots of tools in my bag of tricks, but if I had to say what is the main thing I use every single day it would be article marketing.

What is article marketing? Article marketing is a form of advertising in which businesses write short articles on topics relevant to their industry. These articles have what is called a resource box at the bottom of the article in which the author can link to their website or a website they are promoting. These articles are submitted to directories for publication. Many times if the content is well written the article will be syndicated to other sites all across the internet.

Article marketing is obviously good because of the traffic that it can bring you. If a person reads your article and thinks it was informative they are likely to click the link and read more on your website. They might join your list or buy a product from your site at this point. If your site is well done they may subscribe to your RSS feed or join your newsletter. If they do then you will have a consistent way to market to them provided that you continue to give them relevant, quality content.

One key that is often overlooked in article marketing is the fact that your articles provide your main website with lots of backlinks. Backlinks are when another site links to your site. When this happens you are seen by the search engines as more relevant and this you are ranked higher in the searches. The more popular the page is that has linked to you, the more weight the search engine gives it.

Another key that most businesses miss is that the article directories are often ranked very highly by Google and other search engines. When your articles are published you are seen as the industry expert because every time someone searches for information on your topic they see your articles. Wouldn’t you like it if every time a person did a search on Google they were inundated with articles written by you about that topic? If they saw all that and then found out they could have you to do the work for them they would not only let you do it, they would be excited to have you do it. That is where you want to be as a business owner.

How to Create a Profitable Home Based Business Online – Home Business Opportunity

I am going to give you the steps I used to begin my online, home based business and it will take you less than an hour (being realistic). It’s so easy!

1. Find a niche market you are interested in which you know has hungry buyers. Use Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find top keywords that you can base your site content on.

2. Buy a domain name and hosting for less than $20 – I find the best value for a domain name is GoDaddy (coupons are available if you Google them) and Hostgator as a hosting provider (I recommend their ‘Baby’ package) for new home based businesses.

3. The hosting provider will email you nameservers which you will need to change in your domain account settings. This means your blog will appear when you type in your domain to the browser.

4. Create a WordPress blog which will be uploaded to your server. The reason I use WordPress is that it is incredibly flexible for getting top ranks in search engines and easy to update. They are also a great trust builder, so make sure you add some affiliate products for you to gain healthy commissions from buyers.

5. Change the nameservers in your domain account for your home based business domain.

6. For the topic which your blog relates to, you want to write articles or have them written. This really isn’t as hard as you may think as there is so much material out there already (just don’t duplicate other peoples content).

7. Submit these first to EzineArticles (EZA) as they always rank best. Once approved, you can then create variations of the articles and submit to other article directories but in the resource box, always create an anchor text link pointing back (backlinks) to your main site. As you create more articles and backlinks, your site will rank higher and traffic should flood in.

8. By now you should be making nice commissions from your home based business and people should be loving your blog, as you are feeding them with valuable information. Take advantage of this and offer a free report in exchange for their email address. You can do this by signing up to Aweber for an autoresponder. If people want your report they will opt in, submitting their name and email address. Once you build a list, you can promote other affiliate products and make even MORE money.

9. Promotion is the key to any business success but the great thing about home based businesses is that you should only need to work at most 3 hours per day! It sure does beat 9 – 5! At your own will just keep submitting articles, bookmark your content at social media sites and promote in related niche blogs and forums.

10. It really is that easy to start a home based business. Create a blog that sells affiliate products, promote the main blog page using articles and social bookmarking, then once the traffic starts to flood in, the blog will rank higher and higher, meaning more money!

The most commissions come from being extremely targeted in the market you want to approach. So if you enter the body building niche, stick with that and do not sell products on how to spice up a relationship. People search online for specific things, so keep your blog specific to what you are trying to promote.